Vanuatu

• The Constitution of 1980, the highest law
• Acts of Parliament, and English and French law that were in force at independence
• Customary law, which the Constitution says must be considered
• Decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court

• The Court of Appeal
• The Supreme Court
• Magistrates' Courts, and Island Courts that apply custom

A law degree, from an English-speaking or French-speaking university, and admission by the Supreme Court.

• It has two colonial legal traditions, English and French, and has to choose between them case by case.
• Its official languages are Bislama, English and French.
• The Constitution gives a National Council of Chiefs a role in matters of custom.

Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Seychelles, Mauritius

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Vanuatu as: Civil law, Customary, Common law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Botswana, Cameroon, Cyprus, Guyana, Israel, Lesotho, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, Northern Cyprus, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, South Africa.

• PacLII: Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute
• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
• Constitute Project: constitution of Vanuatu

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.